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The centimeter-scale cyborg insects have a potential advantage for application in narrow environments where humans cannot operate. To realize such tasks, researchers have developed a small printed-circuit-board (PCB) which an insect can carry and control it. The electronic components usually remain bare on the board and the whole board is mounted on platform animals, resulting in uneven morphology of whole cyborg with sharp edges. It is well known that streamlined body shape in artificial vehicles or robots contributes to effective locomotion by reducing drag force in media. However, little is known how the entire body shape impacts on locomotor performance of cyborg insect. Here, we developed a 10 mm by 10 mm board which provided electrical stimulation via Sub-GHz communication and investigated the impact of physical arrangement of the board using Madagascar hissing cockroach. We compared the success rate of gap negotiation between the cyborg with mounted board and implanted board and found the latter outperformed the former. We demonstrated our cyborg cockroach with implanted board could follow faithfully to the locomotion command via antennal or cercal stimulation and traverse a narrow gap like air vent cover. In contrast to the conventional arrangement, our cyborg insects are suitable for application in a concealed environment.

This study focuses on improving the ability of cyborg insects to navigate autonomously during search and rescue missions in outdoor environments. We propose an algorithm that leverages data from an IMU to calculate orientation and position based on the insect's walking gait. These computed factors serve as essential feedback channels across 3 phases of our exploration. Our method functions without relying on external systems. The results of our trials, carried out in both indoor (4.8 x 6.6 m^2) and outdoor (3.5 x 6.0 m^2) settings, show that the cyborg insect is capable of seeking a human without knowing the human's position. This exploration strategy would help to bring terrestrial cyborg insects closer to practical application in real-life search and rescue (SAR) missions., Comment: 35 pages, 9 figures

Navigating multi-robot systems in complex terrains has always been a challenging task. This is due to the inherent limitations of traditional robots in collision avoidance, adaptation to unknown environments, and sustained energy efficiency. In order to overcome these limitations, this research proposes a solution by integrating living insects with miniature electronic controllers to enable robotic-like programmable control, and proposing a novel control algorithm for swarming. Although these creatures, called cyborg insects, have the ability to instinctively avoid collisions with neighbors and obstacles while adapting to complex terrains, there is a lack of literature on the control of multi-cyborg systems. This research gap is due to the difficulty in coordinating the movements of a cyborg system under the presence of insects' inherent individual variability in their reactions to control input. In response to this issue, we propose a novel swarm navigation algorithm addressing these challenges. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated through an experimental validation in which a cyborg swarm was successfully navigated through an unknown sandy field with obstacles and hills. This research contributes to the domain of swarm robotics and showcases the potential of integrating biological organisms with robotics and control theory to create more intelligent autonomous systems with real-world applications.

Shape memory structures are playing an important role in many cutting-edge intelligent fields. However, the existing technologies can only realize 4D printing of a single polymer or metal, which limits practical applications. Here, we report a construction strategy for TSMP/M heterointerface, which uses Pd2+-containing shape memory polymer (AP-SMR) to induce electroless plating reaction and relies on molecular dynamics, which has both shape memory properties and metal activity and information processing power. Through multi-material DLP 3D printing technology, the interface can be 3D selectively programmed on functional substrate parts of arbitrary shapes to become 4D electronic smart devices (Robotics). Microscopically, this type of interface appears as a composite structure with a nanometer-micrometer interface height, which is composed of a pure substrate layer (smart materials), an intermediate layer (a composite structure in which metal particles are embedded in a polymer cross-linked network) and a pure metal layer. The structure programmed by TSMP/M heterointerface exhibits both SMA characteristics and metal properties, thus having more intelligent functions (electroactive, electrothermal deformation, electronically controlled denaturation) and higher performance (selectivity of shape memory structures can be realized control, remote control, inline control and low voltage control). This is expected to provide a more flexible manufacturing process as platform technology for designing, manufacturing and applying smart devices with new concepts, and promote the development of cutting-edge industries such as smart robots and smart electronics., Comment: 37 Pages, 11 Figures

The temperature measurement of material inside of an object is one of the key technologies for control of dynamical processes. For this purpose, various techniques such as laser-based thermography and phase-contrast imaging thermography have been studied. However, it is, in principle, impossible to measure the temperature of an element inside of an object using these techniques. One of the possible solutions is measurements of Doppler brooding effect in neutron resonance absorption (NRA). Here we present a method to measure the temperature of an element or an isotope inside of an object using NRA with a single neutron pulse of approximately 100 ns width provided from a high-power laser. We demonstrate temperature measurements of a tantalum (Ta) metallic foil heated from the room temperature up to 617 K. Although the neutron energy resolution is fluctuated from shot to shot, we obtain exactly the temperature using a reference of a silver (Ag) foil kept to the room temperature. A free gas model well reproduces the results. This method enables element(isotope)-sensitive thermometry to detect the instantaneous temperature rise in dynamical processes.

By leveraging their high mobility and small size, insects have been combined with microcontrollers to build up cyborg insects for various practical applications. Unfortunately, all current cyborg insects rely on implanted electrodes to control their movement, which causes irreversible damage to their organs and muscles. Here, we develop a non-invasive method for cyborg insects to address above issues, using a conformal electrode with an in-situ polymerized ion-conducting layer and an electron-conducting layer. The neural and locomotion responses to the electrical inductions verify the efficient communication between insects and controllers by the non-invasive method. The precise "S" line following of the cyborg insect further demonstrates its potential in practical navigation. The conformal non-invasive electrodes keep the intactness of the insects used while controlling their motion. With the antennae, important olfactory organs of insects preserved, the cyborg insect, in the future, may be endowed with abilities to detect the surrounding environment., Comment: 27 pages

While most micro-robots face difficulty traveling on rugged and uneven terrain, beetles can walk smoothly on the complex substrate without slipping or getting stuck on the surface due to their stiffness-variable tarsi and expandable hooks on the tip of tarsi. In this study, we found that beetles actively bent and expanded their claws regularly to crawl freely on mesh surfaces. Inspired by the crawling mechanism of the beetles, we designed an 8-cm miniature climbing robot equipping artificial claws to open and bend in the same cyclic manner as natural beetles. The robot can climb freely with a controllable gait on the mesh surface, steep incline of the angle of 60{\deg}, and even transition surface. To our best knowledge, this is the first micro-scale robot that can climb both the mesh surface and cliffy incline.

While bio-inspired and biomimetic systems draw inspiration from living materials, biohybrid systems incorporate them with synthetic devices, allowing the exploitation of both organic and artificial advantages inside a single entity. In the challenging development of centimeter-scaled mobile robots serving unstructured territory navigations, biohybrid systems appear as a potential solution in the forms of terrestrial insect-machine hybrid systems, which are the fusion of living ambulatory insects and miniature electronic devices. Although their maneuver can be deliberately controlled via artificial electrical stimulation, these hybrid systems still inherit the insects' outstanding locomotory skills, orchestrated by a sophisticated central nervous system and various sensory organs, favoring their maneuvers in complex terrains. However, efficient autonomous navigation of these hybrid systems is challenging. The struggle to optimize the stimulation parameters for individual insects limits the reliability and accuracy of navigation control. This study overcomes this problem by implementing a feedback control system with an insight view of tunable navigation control for an insect-machine hybrid system based on a living darkling beetle. Via a thrust controller for acceleration and a proportional controller for turning, the system regulates the stimulation parameters based on the instantaneous status of the hybrid robot. While the system can provide an overall success rate of ~71% for path-following navigations, fine-tuning its control parameters could further improve the outcome's reliability and precision to up to ~94% success rate and ~1/2 body length accuracy, respectively. Such tunable performance of the feedback control system provides flexibility to navigation applications of insect-machine hybrid systems., Comment: Demonstration video can be found at http://youtu.be/p00mfxFo7VY

While most insect-inspired robots come with a simple tarsus such as a hemispherical foot tip, insect legs have complex tarsal structures and claws, which enable them to walk on complex terrain. Their sharp claws can smoothly attach and detach on plant surfaces by actuating a single muscle. Thus, installing insect-inspired tarsus on legged robots would improve their locomotion on complex terrain. This paper shows that the tendon-driven ball-socket structure provides the tarsus both flexibility and rigidity, which is necessary for the beetle to walk on a complex substrate such as a mesh surface. Disabling the tarsus' rigidity by removing the socket and elastic membrane of a tarsal joint, the claws could not attach to the mesh securely. Meanwhile, the beetle struggled to draw the claws out of the substrate when we turned the tarsus rigid by tubing. We then developed a cable-driven bio-inspired tarsus structure to validate the function of the tarsus as well as to show its potential application in the legged robot. With the tarsus, the robotic leg was able to attach and retract smoothly from the mesh substrate when performing a walking cycle., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures

Constructing precise micro-nano metal patterns on complex three-dimensional (3D) plastic parts allows the fabrication of functional devices for advanced applications. However, this patterning is currently expensive and requires complex processes with long manufacturing lead time. The present work demonstrates a process for the fabrication of micro-nano 3D metal-plastic composite structures with arbitrarily complex shapes. In this approach, a light-cured resin is modified to prepare an active precursor capable of allowing subsequent electroless plating (ELP). A multi-material digital light processing 3D printer was newly developed to enable the fabrication of parts containing regions made of either standard resin or active precursor resin nested within each other. Selective 3D ELP processing of such parts provided various metal-plastic composite parts having complicated hollow micro-nano structures with specific topological relationships on a size scale as small as 40 um. Using this technique, 3D metal topologies that cannot be manufactured by traditional methods are possible, and metal patterns can be produced inside plastic parts as a means of further miniaturizing electronic devices. The proposed method can also generate metal coatings exhibiting improved adhesion of metal to plastic substrate. Based on this technique, several sensors composed of different functional nonmetallic materials and specific metal patterns were designed and fabricated. The present results demonstrate the viability of the proposed method and suggest potential applications in the fields of smart 3D micro-nano electronics, 3D wearable devices, micro/nano-sensors, and health care.

While engineers put lots of effort, resources, and time in building insect scale micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) that fly like insects, insects themselves are the real masters of flight. What if we would use living insect as platform for MAV instead? Here, we reported a flight control via electrical stimulation of a flight muscle of an insect-computer hybrid robot, which is the interface of a mountable wireless backpack controller and a living beetle. The beetle uses indirect flight muscles to drive wing flapping and three major direct flight muscles (basalar, subalar and third axilliary (3Ax) muscles) to control the kinematics of the wings for flight maneuver. While turning control was already achieved by stimulating basalar and 3Ax muscles, electrical stimulation of subalar muscles resulted in braking and elevation control in flight. We also demonstrated around 20 degrees of contralateral yaw and roll by stimulating individual subalar muscle. Stimulating both subalar muscles lead to an increase of 20 degrees in pitch and decelerate the flight by 1.5 m/s2 as well as an induce an elevation of 2 m/s2., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, supplemental video: https://youtu.be/P9dxsSf14LY . Cyborg and Bionic Systems 2022

There is still a long way to go before artificial mini robots are really used for search and rescue missions in disaster-hit areas due to hindrance in power consumption, computation load of the locomotion, and obstacle-avoidance system. Insect-computer hybrid system, which is the fusion of living insect platform and microcontroller, emerges as an alternative solution. This study demonstrates the first-ever insect-computer hybrid system conceived for search and rescue missions, which is capable of autonomous navigation and human presence detection in an unstructured environment. Customized navigation control algorithm utilizing the insect's intrinsic navigation capability achieved exploration and negotiation of complex terrains. On-board high-accuracy human presence detection using infrared camera was achieved with a custom machine learning model. Low power consumption suggests system suitability for hour-long operations and its potential for realization in real-life missions., Comment: Videos are available at https://hirosatontu.wordpress.com/research/